Pages tagged Countdown

According to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), if you’re Middle Eastern, you can’t help but lie. It’s not your fault, though; it’s just part of your culture. In one of the more bigoted and downright stupid things we’ve heard out of Washington in a while (and that’s saying something), Rep. Hunter told C-SPAN that we can’t trust Iran to live up to its end of the nuclear deal brokered by the P 5+1 because “In the Middle Eastern culture it is looked upon with very high regard to get the best deal possible, no matter what it takes, and that includes lying."

Friday, November 29 marked the one-year anniversary of the United Nations vote to upgrade the Palestinian Mission to the UN’s status to “non-member observer state.” To mark the event, the United Nations passed a resolution labeled 68/L.12 declaring 2014 the “International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

We have a deal. The U.S. (and other world powers) announced on Saturday that Iran has agreed to put the first significant limits on its nuclear program, in the most significant agreement reached between Tehran and the international community in decades. The agreement requires Iran to hold its uranium enrichment capacity in place for six months, under tight supervision, and in exchange, Iran receives temporary sanctions relief.

The Daily Beast reported on more infighting between top Obama Administration officials on US policy in the Arab world. The flavor of the week is the United States’ policy on Egypt; not only are U.S. administration officials clashing over foreign policy, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to widen rifts between world powers, and between members of the United States Congress, over an Iranian nuclear deal; you may have missed it, but last week the Palestinian negotiation team engaged in US-brokered talks with the Israelis resigned.

Next Tuesday, November 19, AAI is partnering with several human rights and religious organizations, and Rep. Barbara Lee’s (D-CA) office to convene a briefing on Capitol Hill entitled, “Wadi Foquin: A Microcosm of the Urgency for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” Presenters from the Palestinian village of Wadi Foquin and their Israeli neighbors in Tsur Hadassa will give a vivid account of how their current situation is unsustainable for both groups, stressing the need for movement on Israeli-Palestinian peace.

As anyone who gets our action alerts knows, we get pretty excited about Election Day. Don’t be fooled by the odd-numbered year – just because there wasn’t a big election in Congress this week doesn’t mean the results aren’t worth paying attention to.

AAI president Jim Zogby argues that Arab Americans and supporters of the Palestinians here in the US need to focus more on Palestinians' rights, and less on the “debate as to what the 'deal' [between Israelis and Palestinians] should include or whether no deal is the best outcome – since that result, some say, would lead inevitably to a one-state solution.” Don’t get him wrong, though, it’s not that the outcome of the “deal” doesn’t matter - it most certainly does. Instead, Zogby says we should focus on what we can do: “shine a light on the daily injustices visited upon Palestinians, and mobilize support for those whose human rights are being abused.” “As long as Palestinians are not known, discourse about the issue in the US will remain hopelessly one-sided.” “Only when Palestinians are known and their rights are fully recognized will the US feel the need to press for balanced peace that recognizes the rights and needs of all.” Cynical about this approach? Consider this: In 1977 when the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) was created, no then-existing human rights group would adopt Palestinian cases. Now, movies like “Five Broken Cameras” highlighting gross human rights violations are getting nominated for Oscars.

You don’t need us to tell you we like what we see from Bill de Blasio, the progressive Democrat who seems a shoo-in for the next mayor of New York City and has been harshly critical of the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program. But this week he gave us the best reason yet to support his election in two weeks: he promised to end NYPD’s pervasive, widespread surveillance of Arab Americans and American Muslim New Yorkers.

Washington’s nuclear-stakes game of “deal or no deal” might finally come to an end today, just hours before the Treasury Department says it the U.S. will run out of money to pay its bills. Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) just announced that they’ve agreed to a deal to reopen the government and raise the statutory debt ceiling, ending the ongoing government shutdown now in its third week and preventing an unprecedented and catastrophic default by the United States.

Enoughda! No, that is not a spelling mistake - we know our title is a mouthful so we decided to combine the word enough and Ennahda (Tunisia’s ruling Islamist Party) because we thought it was funny. Well, and also because according to the latest Zogby Research Services (ZRS) poll, after two and a half years in power, Tunisians have had enough of Ennahda. Ennahda now has the confidence of only 28% of the population—and that 28% is almost exclusively comprised of Ennahda supporters. The Tunisia poll numbers bear striking resemblance to data from a poll of Egyptian attitudes toward the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi conducted back in May.